Chrome OS, the tech company says, is a new system that stops users worrying about their computer so they can concentrate on the internet.

Microsoft’s first flagship store features print on-demand-video games.

A group of computer scientists from the University of Washington’s Graphics and Imaging Laboratory have created an algorithm that improves the technology behind Microsoft’s Photosynth to render massive environments in 3D.

Microsoft’s Project Natal, the gesture-recognition technology shown off at E3, is now coming to the office to boost productivity.  In a demonstration to CNET, Microsoft showed off a futuristic desktop solution that transforms the entire office into a collection of displays and input devices.
The hardware is in the later stages of development, but it remains to be seen what applications will be most efficient in this gesture control environment.  The massive displays allow for multiple work spaces, like notes or photos, but we wonder how such a complex control center will work in the everyday office.  The potential for the [...]

Am I the only one who finds it somewhat bizarre that Apple is threatening to sue Microsoft over its “Laptop Hunters” TV campaign? I mean, the “eighty hours a week, and proud of it” mob in Cupertino have been kicking the crap out of Microsoft for years with its “I’m a PC – I’m a Mac” campaign, pointing out the numerous ways a Mac offers significant advances in everything from the operating system, to the applications, to its ease of use. Now apparently, Apple is throwing a hissy fit, ‘cos the Redmond geeks have the temerity to suggest that a [...]

An article by John Gapper in the Financial Times argues that US tech companies ignored the netbook as they didn’t want to cannibalize the market for larger laptops and PCs. As he charts the rise of the hardware, Gapper says they ignored signals of netbook use in Japan and the early indication…

Google is launching a new operating system for the PC which it hopes will release Microsoft’s near monopoly of the market. Google already has been creating competitive software products with Google Docs that offer web-based alternatives to Microsoft’s Word and Exel but now they will launch Chrome Operating System that will go up against the Windows system.
The NY Times says that the system is initially aimed at the growing netbook market but that the software is fully capable of powering “fully fledged” PCs. Google seems to have eyed the boom in netbooks as an opportunity to make market change. The [...]

We were playing with Google Trends the other day and we did a rather unimaginative search to look at interest over time for 2 leading tech companies – Microsoft and Apple. The numbers on the graphs on Google Trends reflect how many searches have been done for a particular term, relative to the total number of searches done on Google over time.
The graph above shows that interest in Microsoft was in decline and Apple in ascent but before the lines could cross – Steve Jobs poor health seems to have checked Apple’s growth and stopped the Cupertino based tech [...]

At this week’s E3 exhibition in Los Angeles, Microsoft is showing off a device they’re claiming will both revolutionize video gaming and render obsolete its hitherto requisite accessory—the controller. Dubbed “Project Natal,” the peripheral is an array of microphones, an RGB camera, and a depth sensor, that work in concert to pull off sophisticated face, voice, and gesture recognition that allows full-body movement to translate into intricate on-screen commands. Microsoft is proclaiming the device not just a quantum leap in gaming, but also the next step in making its Xbox the pinnacle of home entertainment, allowing Natal to hook up [...]

In a week’s time Microsoft will be launching its new Internet Search site, Bing, previously code named “Kumo”. Microsoft tapped Interbrand to conceive this moniker, which is meant to be a verbable phrase. Their hope is that in 6 months time we’ll be “Binging” things rather than “Googling” them.
Reviews have sprung up across pundit sites in the digital space. Their verdict? Microsoft’s offering does innovate in particular search tasks; notably in local, travel, shopping and health. Microsoft leverages an semantic approach to search, scraping partner sites to aggregate product and restaurant reviews for local and shopping, and competitive pricing for [...]

Microsoft have launched the next generation of their media player Zune. Available in the Fall, the Zune HD offers owners hybrid digital radio, high-definition (HD) video output capabilities and the usual media management. The big update seems to be how they’re connecting the Zune service with Microsoft’s Xbox environment. The press release reads:
Zune will be a premium partner in the Xbox LIVE Video Marketplace, bringing an exciting catalog of TV and film to the platform. Zune will occupy the first slot within the Xbox user interface in the Xbox LIVE Video Marketplace, exposing the Zune brand experience to millions of [...]

Following the recent TV ad Google released in the hope of increasing the number of Chrome users across the world, Farhad Manjoo, Slate’s technology columnist, offers the company several useful suggestions. He brings up the fact that an ad as simple as the Chrome one isn’t enough to explain the benefits of a slightly complex product like a web browser. The people who Google needs to target, according to him, are the Firefox fanatics who were glad to switch from Internet Explorer because it reassured them that ‘someone was working to build innovation back into the Web’, given Microsoft’s monopoly [...]

In Slate, Seth Stevenson tears into Microsoft’s dimishing brand strength via Crispin Porter + Bogusky’s recent ads for Microsoft featuring children (like the one below) and JWT’s unimaginative ad for Microsoft’s Quiksilver. He argues that while the ads are bad in themselves (CP+B’s ‘fratty snark’ is apparently not a match for Microsoft’s inherent unhipness and JWT’s ads are ‘even worse than CP+B’s’), the main problem lies in the brand itself. To be fair, Stevenson admits disliking Crispin intensely. Still, he somehow comes out and says about Microsoft what a lot of people perhaps think.
From the article:
According to BusinessWeek, Microsoft [...]

This past January, PSFK held a Good Ideas Salon in London bringing together the most forward-thinking tastemakers, innovators, and experts from around the world to discuss key areas steering innovation. There, Richard Banks (Microsoft) spoke about what he refers to as “digital heirlooms” and discussed the histories we are creating about ourselves through digital media and how future generations will interact with the artifacts we leave behind.
Richard considered the current products of our technology, such as the thousands of digital photos taken by people each year, and discussed their endurance over time. While previous generations left tangible objects, our current [...]

We are all familiar with the Microsoft Surface, the multi-touch interactive table, but recently Microsoft unveiled some new developments they are hoping to implement into the next version.  At TechFest 2009 Microsoft’s Research and Development team are showcasing new projection technology that allows interaction with the Surface above the actual device.  The new upgrade, codenamed SecondLight, includes an additional projector hidden inside the Surface product body that will detect a basic hand held viewfinder held over the screen that can be used to project additional images on.
The employee demonstrating the upgraded device shows the ability of the extra projector to [...]